A Pocono Township dream house or a dump?

Wednesday

Jul 17, 2013 at 12:01 AM

A Penn Estates man will continue to fight to rebuild his Pocono Township dream house that a state environmental agency calls dilapidated and wants to demolish as part of a plan to clean up a decades-old waste dump.

DAVID PIERCE

A Penn Estates man will continue to fight to rebuild his Pocono Township dream house that a state environmental agency calls dilapidated and wants to demolish as part of a plan to clean up a decades-old waste dump.

The state Department of Environmental Protection filed a complaint Tuesday in Monroe County Court seeking an order allowing DEP contractors to enter the five-acre property at 1096 Sullivan Trail and carry out what remains of a $1.3 million remediation project. Standing in their way are Khalid and LaShonne Moore, who bought the property for $800 in a February county tax sale.

It is the second time the DEP has had to contend with someone who bought the property from the Monroe County Tax Claim Bureau.

But the environmental contamination dates back to when Dennis and Frances Yuhas illegally disposed of construction and demolition debris and paint waste.

Dennis Yuhas died in 2003, and Frances Yuhas abandoned the site, moving to New Jersey, according to court papers filed by DEP. The state Attorney General's Office filed criminal charges against her in 2006 for operating a dump without the required permits. She was sentenced to probation and required to pay fines and costs. She died in October 2011.

The property went to tax sale in 2009 after Yuhas failed to pay the taxes. It eventually ended up in the hands of a Delaware-registered corporation, which again let the taxes lapse, resulting in the Moores buying it early this year.

The DEP removed hundreds of paint containers, contaminated soil and other materials from the property after testing.

Now it wants to begin a second phase focused on excavating and regrading a portion of a construction and demolition waste pile, building a retaining wall along an embankment and covering and vegetating other waste material. DEP also wants to relocate a portion of Dry Sawmill Run, a high quality cold water fishery entitled to special protection, to prevent waste from contaminating the stream.

"To safely operate the equipment with the necessary lines of sight, and to have enough room at the site for relocation of waste material, the department needs to demolish and remove the dilapidated house that was constructed at the site by Dennis and Frances Yuhas," DEP wrote in its complaint. "The house is in a terrible state of disrepair and is a nuisance."

DEP says many of the windows have been smashed and the interior has been exposed to the elements for years. A fire after the house was abandoned partially destroyed it. Vandals have caused other damage, according to the department.

Pocono Township engineer David Horton called the structure unfit for human habitation and took steps to schedule it for demolition. DEP agreed to take on the demolition as part of the environmental cleanup.

The Moores were aware of the cleanup and demolition issues when they bought the property, overlooking Camelback and Tannersville. They want to save the home.

Khalid Moore, 43, who has worked in construction in New York City since he was 19, admires the "shape and form" of the house and window locations.

"I can restore it to its original glory and live peacefully there for the rest of my years," Moore said. "The views are just out of this world. You would never be able to build anything like that again."

He said the environmental problems there aren't nearly as bad as portrayed by DEP.

"At the last testing it was just high elevations of lead," Moore said. "It was just a little lead there."

DEP intends to keep most of the contaminated dirt on site, he said, one pile to be segregated with a retaining wall because the ground is unstable. Moore said there is plenty of room around the house for cleanup crews to work, including a driveway.

Moore attended a DEP public hearing on the cleanup just days before buying the property. Moore was warned by the department that if he bought it, he could be considered financially responsible for damages and cleanup.